Seven congressmen are facing ethics questions because they held campaign fundraising events within a day or two of the Dec. 11 House vote on overhauling government regulation of investment banks and money managers on Wall Street.

An eighth House member, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), did not host a money event but raised at least $30,000 from financial firms and their advocates during a 10-day period before the vote, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Hensarling, a member of the Financial Services Committee, categorically denied "any implication of influence," a spokesman told the Post.

The other seven reportedly under scrutiny by the Office of Congressional Ethics are: Reps. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.); Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), Tom Price (R-Ga.), Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), John Campbell (R-Calif.) and Christopher Lee (R-N.Y.). The Post said its information came from congressional sources and letters sent out by the ethics office. The OCE declined comment. But its investigation focuses on whether the timing of the fundraising created an unacceptable appearance of a conflict of interest, the newspaper said.
Spokesmen for Campbell, Crowley and Pomeroy (who raised $72,050, according to the Post) said the lawmakers all complied with ethics rules. Proving a quid pro quo in such cases is difficult.

The Wall Street legislation is now before a House-Senate conference committee and is expected to go to the White House for the president's signature later this year.

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Big Daddy

Move the House and senate to one of the closed military bases and let these turkeys stay on the base living in private cubicles. They can eat in the mess hall, use the recreational facilities, and not spend our time hustling campaign contributions. With no limos they could walk to work. With visitors logging in at the gate we can see who they are intertaining. The savings alone would pay for it and the efficiency of getting things done could save untold amounts of money. After all it should be good enough for them since they think our servicemen and women should get the same treatment.

Over 3000 lobbyists for the financial sector have descended on Washington for the writing of the final financial reform package. So far the republicans are just saying no as usual and the democrats are trying to rein in the masters of the universe. Now I know it's hard to prove colusion but they don't spend half a billion for nothing, after all they are investment bankers and know how to get the most return for their investment.

Yesterday there was a vote to remove tax credits for large oil companies. The money saved would go to reduce the deficit. Only 35 Senators voted for the bill. If you check all the no votes you will find they all received money from the oil companies.

If campaign financing was provided by INDIVIDUAL taxpayers, an amount given based on GROSS INCOME, both on the Fed and State tax forms, it would eliminate the influence on , and outright PURCHASE of, election results. We pay for the tremendous contributions made by corps, unions, lobbyists, FOREIGN interests, etc., anyway, so why not limit the pool of funds to those that can be collected from individual taxpayers. The Fed and State pools of funding would be distributed equally amongst the candidates, the amount given to each would depend on the level of office for which they aspire.

Not only would this eliminate special interest groups, it would limit funds so candidates would be more prudent in how they spend their money..........fewer attack ads that generally VASTLY mislead the public, and more ads/speeches/debates that present the qualifications and proposals that the candidate has to offer the citizens. This battle over who gets the most money from which sources has become absurd. ALL OF THE POLITICIANS play footsie with the special interests, under our current campaign funding system. TIME TO CHANGE THIS. This would be real campaign finance reform.